


Colors

by shnuffeluv



Series: Colors [1]
Category: Sanders Sides (Web Series)
Genre: Character Study, Colors, Domestic Fluff, Ficlet, Gen, Platonic Relationships, Synesthesia
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-07-15
Updated: 2018-07-15
Packaged: 2019-06-10 22:25:39
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,145
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15301350
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/shnuffeluv/pseuds/shnuffeluv
Summary: Virgil thinks in colors. He's a little surprised to find out the others don't.





	Colors

Virgil was confused about a lot of things around the Mind Palace once he was feeling more accepted into the fold. He’d be listening to music and Logan would sit next to him and open a book, just spending time with him without saying anything. Patton would occasionally knock on his door and ask if he wanted to join the others for dinner, or games, or a movie. And Roman would make grand gestures seem like nothing. He made an entirely new chair for the dinner table for Virgil, but he didn’t conjure it, no. He made it  _by hand_.

The more he thought about it, the more he realized that he didn’t mind being in the spotlight around the others, because they weren’t going to tear him down or jeer at him or do anything of that sort. These were just things they did for their friends. And it was weird to think of them as friends, but it was definitely something that made him smile to think about.

But that did leave him with a question: what was it that he did for  _them_? Friends did things for each other, and he had no idea what he brought to the table, other than an appetite or new music tastes.

It was one day when his hand brushed up against Patton’s that Patton nearly jumped out of his skin and gasped that Virgil found out what he could do. “Patton?!” Virgil immediately yelped. “Are you okay?!”

Patton took a breath. “Yeah, kiddo, I’m okay. I just...that was weird. You know, when I touched you suddenly all of my thoughts got color.”

Virgil frowned. “What do you mean, ‘they got color’? Don’t they always have that?”

Patton shook his head. “Not really. Your thoughts have color to them?”

“...Yeah...?” Virgil said, but inflection made it sound like a quiestion.

“Fascinating,” Logan said from where he was sitting and watching them. Virgil didn’t take the use of the word personally anymore, knowing that Logan genuinely meant he found it interesting, not that he was trying to imply anyone being examined under a microscope. “It appears that Patton saw how your thought process works when he touched you. May I try?”

“...Sure,” Virgil said, deciding that he may as well rise to whatever bait Logan was setting.

Logan took Virgil’s hand and his eyes widened slightly at the touch. He didn’t jerk his hand away, though. “Interesting,” Logan said, before startling at his own speech. “Virgil, I do believe that you have synesthesia.”

“Synes-what?” Virgil asked. “That’s...that’s the tasting colors and feeling music thing, right?”

“It appears in more ways than that, but yes,” Logan said. “You must have a milder form, associating colors to concepts in your mind’s eye. I can see what you see when I speak and it’s...disconcerting, but interesting.”

Virgil slowly took his hand back. “Sorry, I didn’t realize. It must be really overwhelming for you guys, I’ll stop touching you if that’s what you need--”

“What? No, Virgil,” Patton said. “That’s really cool! I wanna see what you see!”

Virgil shifted uncomfortably. “I just thought...I thought you all could do it? Is it really that weird?”

“Not weird, interesting,” Logan clarified. “There’s a difference.”

Roman strolled into the room and paused when he saw the three talking. “Are you having a meeting I wasn’t invited to?” he asked, sounding put out.

“Roman!” Patton exclaimed excitedly. “Did you know that Virgil has synesthesia?”

“No?” Roman said. “How does he have it when we don’t?”

“He has access to separate parts of Thomas’ brain than us,” Logan said. “Perhaps this is something he picked up from Thomas’ subconscious? Associations from there can be very strong and apparently meaningless. Virgil representing Anxiety, a base instinct, might have better access to those associations, and may have gathered that into his development.”

“No fair!” Roman said. “I want to be able to know what that’s like!”

“I could just tell you, you know?” Virgil asked.

Patton gasped. “Ooh, could you?” he squealed. “I want to know what it feels like!”

Virgil ran his tongue over his teeth as he thought, before starting to speak. “Patton, you’re the color of bubblegum pink. You feel like the softest fur on a kitten or a puppy, and like helium balloons set loose in the sky. You have some baby blue in you, too, but you’re mostly that soft, pastel pink.”

Logan arched his eyebrows in interest. “That’s fascinating,” he said. “If I may ask, what am I?”

Virgil grinned. “You’re rain lightly pattering on windows and a cool royal blue. You feel smooth like glass, or stones that have been glossed over in a river. I can get hints of yellow, sometimes, or maybe purple, but royal blue is definitely your strongest color.” He turned to Roman before he could even ask. “Princey, you’re bright orange, like you might find on one of those plastic pumpkins around Halloween. You feel like gold coins spilling over each other, and smooth velvet. Smooth, not the scratchy feeling it gets when it stands up on end.”

“What’s Thomas?” Patton asked.

“Thomas is...” Virgil paused. “Thomas is bright yellow, and the warmth of sun on your skin in the spring. He’s cool popsicles in the summer, and...” he shrugged as he trailed off. “He’s just...relief, I guess.”

“We feel like stuff to you?” Roman asked.

“Sort of?” Virgil asked. “I don’t like, feel it on my skin, but my brain sort of gets an image of my hand running along things like that. So it’s not like I  _feel_  it feel it, but I still get a sense for how you might feel. If you weren’t, you know, flesh and bone.”

Roman nodded. Then an idea stuck him, and Virgil felt a small bit of anticipation in the pit of his stomach. “Can you feel and see things with music, too?” he asked.

“Yeah, sometimes,” Virgil said. “Why?”

“Because it would be amazing to be able to paint what you see when you listen to your favorite songs!” Roman said. “And that could give me inspiration for later projects!”

“I’d love to be able to know how emotions feel for you, kiddo,” Patton said. “It might help me understand other people better.”

“I, for one, would love just talking to you about this further,” Logan said. “See it as bonding if you must, but I am fascinated by it.”

Virgil felt a small smile on his face. He offered a unique perspective on their friendship that no one else could give. And knowing that the others all wanted to spend time with him, to find out in their own ways what Virgil could do with them, because this wasn’t a gift, it was an exchange, made his heart warm and him see yellow and pink. His colors for love.


End file.
